'The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.'
--Jonah 3: 1-5, 10
He said that the Kingdom of God has come near. Really? Are ya sure, Jesus? I look around and sometimes have a really hard time believing that. I see a world, much like the one Jesus knew, where the poor are beaten down, the rich just keep getting richer, and the measure of a nation is the size of the might if its military, not the size of mercy in its heart, where folks with great power, privilege, and possessions lord those things over others and generations are caught in cycles of poverty, war, and injustice. I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that the Kingdom has already come.
But that’s what he said. The very first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the very first Gospel is this: the Kingdom of God has come near. The Greek word that’s used here is engizo, which is a pre-sent-tense verb that means something is here, it’s present, it is at hand. This is why translations like the King James Version or the English Standard Version say that the Kingdom is at hand. It’s here, Jesus is saying, right now! You don’t have to keep wishing and hoping for it in the far off future. You just need to live your lives as if it were a present reality.
So much of what we hear preached and taught about our faith seems based on the promise that the Kingdom is coming; after all, we say it in the Lord’s Prayer—“thy kingdom come,” future tense—and we have the promise of it in our Nicene Creed—“his kingdom will have no end.” It’s sort of engrained in us to look to the future, as though the Kingdom of God is something that is far off, distant, and on the horizon. Someday it will come, we say, and so we keep waiting and hoping while we resign ourselves to remain here in this cruel, suffering world.
A wise teacher once admonished a would-be student. “All his life has he looked away to the fu-ture, to the horizon,” said the teacher, poking the student with his cane. “Never his mind on where he was, what he was doing!” The student’s name was Luke Skywalker, and the teacher’s name was Yoda. Luke had always dreamed of something bigger than himself, some grand and glorious destiny as a galactic hero, but what he didn’t realize was that what he was looking for was right there inside him all along. He wanted to gain knowledge of and strength in the Force and become a great Jedi, but the Force wasn’t something to obtain. It was something in him and around him. He just never let himself see it because he was looking so far off. If you’ve seen the Star Wars sequel trilogy you know that, even as an old man, Luke still has a hard time seeing the reality that is right in front of him.
Brothers and sisters, the reality that is right in front of us is that the Kingdom of God is not some far-off, distant dream for which we hope and pine. No, it is here! It is in you, and it is around you. You don’t have to travel far to find it, and you don’t need to sit around and wait for it to be revealed to you. We can all know the present reality of the Kingdom. We can be participants in it if we only allow ourselves to do so. I wonder: do you know that the Kingdom is already here?
I know that the Kingdom of God is here whenever I see someone in tears as they find comfort and solace from one of our St. James' prayer ministers. I know that it is here when I’m together with folks from a variety of worship communities at a Black Pentecostal church proclaiming with tambourines, dancing, and ‘Amen’ after ‘Amen’ that justice will roll down like waters. I know it is here when a stranger walks up to me in the bakery or coffee shop and asks for a prayer or even, as one random person did, hand me $20 and say in that wonderful northeastern accent, “Here, Father, this is for the church!”without even knowing which church I am affiliated with. Yeah, the world is filled with cruelty and suffering - and we pray for an end to that cruelty and suffering when the Kingdom comes in its fullest form - and yet even still I know the Kingdom is here in these and so many other examples. What's more, I know that there is nothing on this side of the Kingdom that can change that fact!
The thing about Greek that I find so cool is that a present-tense verb doesn’t just mean that some-thing is happening exclusively in the present moment, but also that it will continue to happen into eternity until something compels it to stop. So when Mark uses the verb engizo to say the Kingdom has come near, he means it’s come and it’s going to continue coming, on and on, into eternity. The Kingdom of God is here, and it ain’t going nowhere, brothers and sisters! We need only have eyes to see it and ears to listen for it. Kingdom senses, if you will, to participate in it.
And when we have Kingdom senses, unbelievable, unimaginable things can happen. Take the story of the people of Nineveh. The reluctant prophet Jonah proclaims that in 40 days they will be destroyed. Without any call for repentance from Jonah the people, of their own accord, let their eyes and ears be opened and choose for themselves to repent and seek divine forgiveness. They admit their faults. They say they’re sorry. They perform the customs of the day, taking on sack cloth and ashes and fasting. And something unbelievable, unimaginable happens: God’s mind is changed. It doesn’t happen anywhere else in the whole Bible! And it serves as an example for us that nothing is impossible when we have eyes and ears and hearts attuned to the Kingdom; for if God’s mind can be changed, so can ours; if the people of Nineveh, capital of the oppressive Assyrian Empire, can repent and change their ways, so can we. There is nothing that is impossible when we have Kingdom senses and we know that it is in our midst.
It is especially tempting during times of transition to, likewise, look to the future for the Good News to come our way, to pine and hope for long-term stability, for the perfect scenario that will be everything ok. That’s totally natural during any such times of our lives, and yet even still, brothers and sisters, I pray you know that the Kingdom has come near to you. In moments of grief, as well as joy, the Kingdom has come near. Sure, we wrestle with the already-not yet, the tension that the Kingdom is coming in its fullest version later yet while still being a present reality. But what would it look like for you if you knew in your heart that the Kingdom has come near to you? Maybe you’ll know deep in your soul, despite all the anxiety and fear around you, that God is good—all the time!—which means that all things that come from God are good. This world is good. You are good. And the Kingdom, which is here right now, is very, very good!
So where have you seen the Kingdom? Who are the folks who have shown you glimpses of it? Maybe you’ll hold them in your prayers today. What unbelievable, unimaginable things can you start to believe and imagine are possible? What you seek is not so very far away, but it is right here, and it is good. The time is fulfilled, Jesus said then and still says to us now, and the Kingdom of God has come near.